I'm running civ3 vanilla and I HATE corruption/waste. It's the most annoying thing on earth.

How do I make a mod so that I can make any game with any settings I want (i.e. a normal random map game) except with no corruption/waste.

Assume absolutely no knowledge whatsoever about the edit tools. NONE.

For simplicity, backup your conquests.BIQ file.
Then open this file with the editor (Civ3ConquestsEdit.exe). In it you will find a menu called RULES, select Edit Rules.
Go to the difficulty settings tab and make your changes.

Is conquests required for that, because as I said, all I have is civ3 vanilla

I think you should be able to do the same thing with vanilla.

I still can't figure out how to do it. Help?

go to civ3edit. select scenario, and click custom rules. go to edit rules and go to difficulty settings. select cheiftain, warlord, etc. just move the corruption slider to zero, save as whatever (no corruption) or something. then go to the game and select your new corruptionless scenario!

I'm still having trouble. Are you guys sure your advice is applicable to civ3 vanilla?

When I open the editor, I'm just greeted with a map of pure ocean (presumably for building custom maps).

I can't figure out how to "select scenario", there is no clickable item to be found called "custom rules". And I couldn't find a corruption slider anywhere.

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It can't be done in vanilla. The only Difficulty Level setting is content citizens.
You can set all governments to minimal corruption though.
Tools>>Default Rules>>OK
Rules>>Edit>>Governments

Yeah I was thinking of probably just buying civ3 complete or whatever as soon as i get the chance oh well.